If you're too young to remember actual chestnuts roasting on an actual open fire — or to have seen a Morecambe and Wise Christmas special aired for the first time — allow this pop-up cocktail bar to take you back there.
Miracle at Henrietta is a divinely kitsch Christmas pop-up in the Henrietta Hotel, Covent Garden. Forget colour-coded decor: this place is a riot of foil chandeliers, oversized candy canes and white plastic trees dripping with gaudy tinsel and topped with a tacky fairy. At Miracle, more is more.
And let's talk about those drinks: let's just say Miracle doesn't do refined. That is, unless, you call a Jingle Balls Nog (a teeth-stinting concoction of cognac, cream sherry, almond milk, cream, egg, vanilla and nutmeg) refined.
Other flamboyant tipples on the menu for 2021 include the Christmas Carol Barrel (tequila, coffee liqueur, curacao, spiced chocolate and bitters — served up in a festive plastic barrel, natch); plus the return of the Bad Santa (an unabashedly OTT mulled wine) and the minty tequila-spiked SanTaRex (which naturally comes in a mug shaped like a T-Rex in a Santa hat).
Maybe the only thing that lets Miracle down is the food, which includes: lamb and cumin skewers, chickpea fritters with pickled radish, and wild mushroom and comte cheese croquettes.
Come on folks, where are the cheese footballs and Fanny Cradock Christmas cake?!
Miracle at Henrietta, from 15 November-23 December. At time of publishing, the website's not up to date, but the pop-up is happening in 2021.
